Jocko Podcast - 453: What It Takes to Be A U.S. Navy SEAL. With Eric and Debbie Job

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

Eric and Debbie Job reflect and honor the life of Navy SEAL, Ryan Job.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko Podcast number 453 with me, Jocko Willink. I had a good day, a normal day. I woke up at 0,500 and went on a 25-mile bike ride with a friend and then ran five miles. I'm training for the triathlon. Kelly worked all day, but then we had a steak dinner together. August 2nd is more of everyone else's Memorial Day. For me, August 3rd is the day I live in every day. I don't need a special day of anniversary to remember August 2nd.

Every waking moment of my life reflects August 2nd, 2006. Let it be known that I do not regret the career decisions that I made that ultimately sentenced me to a life of blindness. This is the life I chose, and I would choose it again. How could I feel sorry for myself? God granted me infinite miracles. I am alive. I choose to keep living.

Kelly chose life with me. I am now God's servant. I have been tasked by the creator to inspire others to shed their own self-pities and to choose life. There are two options for me. An unmeaningful, unused life of slow death or a life with meaning and purpose. I choose a meaningful life,

and I will serve God and my wife. I will produce children of my own, and they will learn this way of life through me. All who know me hear my words. I was born a warrior with a God-given warrior spirit. I cannot see you all, but I can see battles that need fighting that you cannot see. I am still a warrior and will be always.

My head is bloodied but unbowed. No matter how straight the gate nor charge the punishments on the scroll, God is the master of my fate. He is the captain of my soul. Signed, Ryan, the war. And that is an email written by Ryan Job to his parents. Ryan was a seal. He was a member of Charlie Platoon task unit bruiser from SEAL Team 3.

And on August 2nd, 2006, during a clearance operation in South Central Romadi, Ryan was on his machine gun in a bounding Overwatch position on a rooftop. A single shot was fired by an unseen enemy shooter. And the round hit Ryan's weapon, which was in Ryan's cheek well. And the round penetrated his weapon and hit Ryan in the face, along with significant shrapnel, creating a devastating wound that would have killed most men, but not Ryan. In fact, he walked himself out of the building to the evacuation vehicle. He was medevac to Balad and then Germany and then eventually back to America But the damage from the bullet was significant

He was rendered completely blind from the wound But that did not stop Ryan he carried on He was as he said in that email Bloodied but unbowed But his fight wasn't over For the next three years he underwent repeated surgeries to repair the damage that was inflicted on him. And after his 22nd surgery,

there were some negligent medical errors made that cost Ryan his life. And he died on September 24th, 2009. But he left behind an example, an example of fortitude and of strength and of tenacity and faith, and resilience and humility and courage an example that we can all look to and use as a guide in our lives.

And Ryan Job was one of my heroes. It was an honor to know him, to have fought alongside him and to be able to share his story. And it's an honor to have his mother and father, Debbie and Eric Job, here tonight, to share some stories and some lessons from their son, Ryan, Debbie, Eric. It's an honor to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.

I know it's painful and, you know, reading some of the old emails. It just brings back so many memories. and really shines the light on what an incredible kid you had. And I thought it'd be awesome to hear some stories about him, where he came from, what it was like dealing with that. I'm sure, let's just say high-energy child growing up. So thank you for joining us. I guess let's start at the beginning. So what were you all doing?

Eric, what did you do? What were you doing for a living? You know, Eric was the, or Ryan was the first of three, right? So what was this situation going into him being born? Go ahead, Debbie. You're the mom. He was our first born. We were just beyond the moon with excitement for having our first child.

And yes, he was somewhat challenging from day one almost. Actually, he was because we had to go back to the hospital after we went home first. What you have to go back to the hospital for? He wouldn't eat. He was jaundiced. Had to go in the incubator under the lights. They sent us home, left him there. I was just devastated.

We had to leave our brand new little thing there. It was awful. I was just sobbed and sobbed. But, you know, we were so excited and here we go. And where was this? Where were you living at the time? Mount Vernon, Washington. And what were you doing for a living?

Eric worked at a, he managed, he was a manager in a building maintenance company and I was a teller at a bank. And did you have any military history in the family? On either side? I have not close relatives, but Eric was in the Navy and his dad was a, well, he can say that. Well, his granddad was a fighter pilot. World War II, back when it was the Army Air Corps. Oh, yeah, yeah. Flew P40s, P38 lightnings, P47 Thunderbolts, then switched over to jets at the time and flew F86s and eventually became an instructor pilot.

And was he around when Ryan was growing up? I think Ryan met him one time when he was real small. As a matter of fact, he learned to walk over at my parents' house. Took his first steps when we were there visiting at Thanksgiving. He was eight and a half months and he took his first steps. He was determined. My folks lived on the East Coast, North Carolina. So there wasn't much of a chance to travel and visit with him.

And my dad died when he was about six. 68 years old. So they never really got to know each other. So you were in the Navy as well? Just four years. What did you do in the Navy? Electrician, ground support electrician. Yeah, for four years. NAS would be. NAS would be. NAS would be. Okay. Got it. Got it. And then how long until the next kid started rolling out? You had two more, right? Aaron was born two and a half years later and we had moved to Portland then just before he was born and then Kelsey was four years after Aaron.

So you got a decent spread on those kids. I had my first three like kind of very rapidly. A pretty tight grouping as they say. And so Ryan is a what about, so we talk about Ryan as a baby a little bit walking at eight months, or eight and a half months. that's ahead of the schedule. How about as a toddler? At what point did you start to see his personality? Pretty young.

How old was he when you told him? He was barely walking when we had to convince him not to touch the wood stove and hurt because it was hot. We warned him repeatedly. And he just wouldn't take my word for it. So eventually I just sat back in my chair and watched. I knew that it wasn't hot enough to destroy his skin, but he learned quickly and then managed to pick up a tall glass vase that we had that was sitting right next to it, dropped it.

I got over there pretty quickly and lifted him straight up out of the glass, and he still got cut. That was our first trip to the emergency room. And eventually, through questions. the pediatrician wanted to know what happened and how he got cut. So we explained, you know, as truthfully as we could what was going on. And all of a sudden the questioning changed a little bit. You ever feel like knocking them around a little bit?

And I saw where this was going. And back in those days, I guess they needed to be careful, you know, about parents that might not be real forefirm. coming about what happened. Yeah. So anyway, they accepted that. And on we went to the next accident. And then he gets into school.

What was his interest, his interest like in school? Was he starting to get into, you know, I don't know with my son, it was like, stereotypical boy, trucks, like tanks, all that kind of stuff. We dealing with a similar thing? Well, even from some of his first toy, I think one of his first toys was, was a Nerf airplane. He loved airplanes from day one. He wanted to be like Grandpa Job. He was going to be a fighter pilot. That's what he always wanted to do. And but yeah, he liked trucks, but he liked airplanes more. He had a motorcycle actually. He was 18

months old. He had this little miniature kid ride on Harley Davidson. Dang. And we have in a helmet. We have pictures of him riding up and down the sidewalk. In fact, our pediatrician lived three lots away from, or not lived, his office was three lots away from our house. And the last time we went to Mount Vernon, we'd stopped in and saw the doctor, and he still had the picture on his wall of Ryan. And he remembered it of he loved to see Ryan going down the sidewalk on his motorcycle. But he liked airplanes the most.

He was in fourth grade when he started playing soccer, played all through high school. But he was a very active. When we moved to our house in Isoquois, there was a lot of trees behind us before they built the other houses. And he and Aaron would climb the trees. Just always wanted to be doing something, very busy. When he got in high school, what sports, so he played soft. Soccer. Did he wrestle? He wrestled. He wrestled, started in sixth grade in middle, junior high, middle school. Ressled all through high school. Yeah, because he was a good wrestler. Like,

when I trained jiu-jitsu with him, he clearly had the wrestling background. And he's had that kind of wrestling strength, you know, when people that wrestled, they got that strong feel to him. And he definitely had that. How were his grades when he was getting into like, like in the middle? middle school and high school, was he into school or into studying? It was passable. Passable, passable. He was pretty disciplined to do it and get it done. He got decent grades, but he was a good writer.

He was a really good writer, actually. I still have quite a few of his stories, things I just can't let go of yet. and every time I go through one of those boxes to get rid of it all. And like when we moved, I just can't. I like looking at our stuff. He was a great artist. We have a lot of pictures that he drew. So grades, and then into high school, he still had decent grades, decent, not, he wasn't a 4.0,

but he also did ROTC then all four years of high school. school. His senior year, he was the ex-o. Yeah, there's COs talk, right? Yeah, he was the EXO with his best friend as a CO. And so his decent enough grades and that earned him a four-year Navy scholarship to the University of Washington. Dang. Well, today we'll reveal to the world that he was also a pretty fair French horn player. Oh, really? The guy. Oh, he kept that a big secret. We were told to keep it a big secret because he would have got a lot of harassment about that. Oh, definitely. Yeah, he enjoyed good music and he was a pretty fair player.

French horn. You didn't know that, did you? No, I didn't. That's ridiculous that I didn't know that. Because we probably, if we would have known that, we would have bought him a French horn. I can guarantee he would have gone down to a pawn shop, got a secondhand French horn, and he would have been forced to play, like, theme songs. He started on trumpet and then he was something, I don't know,

the band director saw it and asked him if he wanted to switch over to French horn. So he said he'd try it. And by the next year, he was playing by the end of sixth grade. He was playing in the eighth grade advanced band. And they also played in competitions at the high school. And he was good. He loved it. He liked classical music too.

That's another secret he kept from us. One of his most exciting things about band was I remember taking him to. to the Canadian brass, had a workshop for the middle school kids in another district. And so we went to that on a Saturday, and he was just so excited to talk to those guys. But he really liked that, and he was pretty good. And you taught him how to shoot, right? That's my only claim to fan with you and my other son. I taught him both to shoot.

And were you hunting and fishing, or was it like target shooting? what were you doing? They started off pretty young. Ryan actually passed the Hunter's Safety Education course when he was 11 years old, and some adults failed it. But I think a lot of dads, they want to get their sons into shooting, and they can easily get into bad habits. So the whole idea was to keep him out of bad habits.

Sometimes the first thing dad will do like my dad did was hand you a big caliber rifle. and which scared me over. But no, we started him off right. And he learned the fundamentals of safety like his younger brother did. And it was really a pretty fair shot by the time he went in the military. One of my fondest possessions is a letter that I got from my younger son telling me how much he appreciated, you know, the lessons that he got before he went in. It helped him a lot, you know, stay a little bit ahead of the game. after he got in.

It helped Ryan as well. And we'll get to that. But I mean, you know, in a seal platoon, you know, especially the new guys, they're all kind of learning how to shoot. And there's a pretty, there's a bell curve. And there's, you know, there'll be a couple guys that are really good. And usually it's a guy that has two, three, four platoons. And then there's a couple guys that are really bad.

And there are a couple new guys that, you know, are just uncoordinated. But most guys are in that middle range and good solid shots. And Ryan was good. Like, it's hard to. make a mark as a shooter as a new guy. And he definitely, he was noticeably a very good shot when he went to close quarters combat training. So it, you did good.

That's a good claim to fame. Did he always be really safe with them too? Yeah, no, he was definitely. I mean, you can't not be safe in the SEAL teams or there's going to be problems. Yeah. Yeah. You're gone. Did you start, did you see any indication?

So he did the ROTC thing. And was he still thinking about being a pilot during this time? Like, was he thinking a Navy pilot? He had talked about flying most of his life. He actually had his pilot license when he was 17. He got his pilot license before he got his driver's license. He put himself through pilot school flying. And his job was he got a job as the janitor at the flight school where he took lessons.

So I would drive him down there to, I forgot what the Boeing field and see. Seattle and to do his job and then go pick him up when he was done. And so he would take lessons out of there also. And then he could drive himself once he finally got his driver's license, which was scary driving into Seattle. But yeah, and he took us both up at different times. Oh, really? He'd go up with me, went up with his granddad.

And he passed his check ride the first time. time around in a Cessna 150 with a really overweight instructor. They had to pull gas out of the plane in order to get it off the ground. It's true story. So when he gets into college, how do you end up playing rugby? Because I know he was a rugby player. Just want to be a tough guy. His friends talked him into it.

But, I mean, that's like a tough sport to play. That's why I wanted it. He's Ryan. It was tough. he's Ryan and that was so that's what he needed to do it was the toughest toughest thing he probably could do in college yeah he got on one afternoon he said guess what somebody got their ear ripped off you know in training he just thought that was splendid uh so he goes to a few years of college um September 11th comes now you're when did you so your younger son was what how much

younger than Ryan Aaron two and a half years two and a half years so while while Ryan's in college, does Aaron enlist in the Marine Corps while he's still in college? Aaron graduated high school 2002 and then oh,

he actually signed his papers because we had to go with him. He signed his papers in 2001, August 2001. And we had to sign for him because his birthday wasn't until September 7th. And that's

when he turned 18. He turned 18 in the beginning of his senior year. So we took him down there. He signed and then 2000 or September 11th. Yeah, September 11th happened. And so he was already committed. So he graduated and then within a month left for boot camp with his best friend who signed and they both went together. How was it for you all see in September 11th? So now what is it? 2002. So Afghanistan's kind of going. Iraq is starting to get a focus on it. And here goes your second son in the Marine Corps.

Nerve-wracking? Tremendously. We stayed glued to the TV set. Well, it was bad enough, just dropping him off at the, they had to stay at a hotel in Renton the night before they flew them to MCRD. And that was bad enough. I just saw some notes about that the other day, an email or a letter to Aaron and told

them that I didn't even cry all the way home. Well, the big concern for us was the chemical weapons. And we didn't know a lot about them, you know, what the Iraqis capability was, what was going to happen. And, you know, we heard differing things. coming off the TV set. And like I'm sure a lot of other parents did, we're constantly watching TV to see if we can see him.

Which, of course, there's thousands of guys over there. And a few times we want, there he is. I think that's him. So this is when... Once the war started. Yeah, once the war kicked off. Yeah, once the war kicked. So Aaron was a Marine on the push-up

in the initial phases of the war. Yeah. And you guys are sitting back there watching that on TV. Yeah. And was Ryan in the Navy yet? He had, he went to boot camp in Chicago to Basic Boot in December of 2002. Graduated February 14th, Valentine's Day, and we were there for graduation. Aaron had left on a ship January 13th, I think it was.

He went over on the boxer. And he called us on February 19th, his last phone called. to us. They had just arrived at Kuwait and then they would head over and wait on the border. And he was, their unit was one of the first, one of, yeah, one of the very first across. One four. One four. Get some. Now. And he was in Charlie Platoon also. Outstanding. Did, so going back to Ryan and what did you know, what did you know about the seal teams had been the Navy, Eric? Oh, he's, he studied up a, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot on them and talked about it.

We talked about it a number of times. After he got into college, I think his intention was to become a SEAL officer. And he found out that there were so few billets or that that he thought he better go ahead and get out of school and go enlisted, which is what he did. And we told him, he said, your chances of making it through are pretty tough. And he never hesitated. He never indicated any concern at all that he wasn't going to make it through. What did he do to prepare for buds? A lot of exercises.

He was in the wrestling. Too many of them in some ways. Yeah, we were talking earlier today about the fact that he was exercising the wrong way. And he had the Charles Atlas like physique, which is not what the Navy was looking for. So did he pack on a lot of muscle, basically? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was like hitting a side of beef, you know, when you saw him. and when he tried to enlist,

they thought that he wasn't height and weight proportionate. And the recruiter says, no, you got to see this kid. So they actually had to send pictures. And then they, of course, accepted him right away. And the Navy decided that they'd give him a swimmer's body instead of what he was parading around at the time. Yeah. You know, there's a certain kind of physical shape that buds kind of requires. There's some variance in there.

But yeah, if you're, for lack of a better word, if you're just too big, too muscular, you're going to lose it. You know, there's like Navy football players that play football at the Naval Academy, and they have to basically starve themselves. When they get done their senior year of Navy football to get ready for buds, and they usually space them out, they give them like as much time as they possibly can. And guys will lose like 50, 60, 70 pounds to get ready to go to buds, because if you're really big,

I mean, you're not going to be able to run. You're not going to be able to swim. You might not even be able to do the obstacle course. Sure. So it sounds like Ryan showed up a little too jacked. Well, he did. Ryan is basically my height. And I'm not very tall.

I'm only about 5'8. And so I think he was close to 200 pounds, something like that. I don't think he weighed that much. But he was up there. He was never, once he got like into his teens, he was never a thin person anyway. He, you know, he would have to kind of, he would kind of struggle, but he. He would describe himself as husky, solid kind of husky. Yeah, not all of it was quite so solid though.

Yeah, yeah. He's a husky, you know, kind of well marbled individual. I mean, even when he wrestled, because he had a few, or maybe sometimes a few more extra pounds, he always was wrestling up a weight class than his height. Yeah. So it was quite a battle for him. But he went to state. And I mean, so.

Oh, he did go to state. Mm-hmm. Dang. That's awesome. How do you do? He did. I want to say he came in fourth maybe. I can't remember for sure.

But that's legit. So you, so you deliver him to boot camp. He graduates from boot camp, Valentine's Day. Meanwhile, Aaron's going, he's in war. And then Ryan, did he go to A school? Yes. How long was A school? I was in a few months.

Well, he went there soon after he graduated. I want to say within a couple weeks or so, he went to Florida for aviation ordinance. And that's where he was March 17. We were at home waiting for President Bush to give the orders to cross the border. And on the 17th, my dad passed away unexpectedly. So Ryan came home for that then. I think, yes. Yeah, they flew him home.

And then he went, I'm not sure how long he was home. And then he went back. And I think he finished like in May and then got down here. to Coronado and I can't remember what that's called in between A school and a week when they actually start Buds. You know, it's probably there's

It's like the pre-school. It's like fourth phase or pre-Buds. They have a bunch of, they change the name all the time. Prep, they call it prep. But yeah, there's usually probably between four and six weeks usually that they sent you into prep for. All summer because then he got,

Bud started. I don't remember exactly when Bud started. And then Hell Week was scheduled to start, I think, September 14th. Aaron arrived back from Iraq from his first appointment, the 13th, which was a huge, huge deal for us. We all came down here to see him arrive. And they gave Ryan 24 hours break from Buds to come and see Aaron arrive at Camp Pendleton. And so he had 24 hours with us, and we brought him back.

We almost, he had to be back by midnight that night. And we almost had him late because we were on I-5. We almost missed that last exit. And then we would have been in Mexico. And he was specifically told, don't go out of the country. So, but, and we almost missed the exit because of the sign. We took the wrong, I don't know, but we got him back. and so from everything i've heard about ryan and buds he had full benefit what we call in the seal

team's full benefit meaning he sure did he got some special attention and there's there's there's a few reasons people get special attentions um you know someone that might be you know anything that stands out whether you're too tall too short too fat too skinny any kind of thing that stands out you're going to get attention. I got attention because I was ugly. I had the instructors. No. Yes.

Yeah, no, it's a big shocker. The instructor, you know, this one warrant officer, we're standing out there for our first inspection, and the warrant officer starts calling all the instructors over, and he's looking at me, like super intent. And he says, he says, what do you guys think? And they're all kind of confused. They go, what do you mean, weren't? They go, is this the ugliest guy we've ever had in buds?

And they say, oh, yeah, he definitely is. So, you know, like I said, if you're too, too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short, too ugly, too handsome, you're going to get a little special attention. That's why you've ever heard the term the gray man. Yes. Yeah, people say, hey, when you go to buds, it's a good idea. Try and be the gray man. Just the guy that kind of fades in. Into the background.

No one really notices them. Yeah. And that's definitely the easiest way, if there's an easy way. It's the easiest way to get through buds is no one really notices you. Well, from everything I've heard, they definitely noticed. Ryan and and when that happens you're going to get some extra special attention and from what I understand he got a lot of special attention I think he had a hard time running because he was big and so now you're starting to there's something called we used to call it the goon squad

now they call it something more politically collect correct like remediation but the goon squad is you know you go out on what they call on conditioning run and at a certain point you know, if you're not up with the pack, you get gooned and you just do sprints and they, but they really, what they do is they break people. They break them mentally, they break them physically in the goon squad. And a lot of people will quit just from the goon squad.

And from what I've heard, you know, Ryan was sort of the cutoff for the goon squad. He's where they start the goon squad. And like I said, they're going to be, they're tough on everyone. But if you don't pass something or you're, in the back of the pack, they're going to go extra hard. And they break people and they get people to quit.

And those instructors can make people quit. Ryan was not one of those people that they could make quit. Ryan had an unorthodox sense of humor, you know, as you know. Yeah. So I'm sure that that didn't help things. But, you know, he got rolled back a couple times, just mainly for medical. Yeah. What do you get cellulitis a couple times? Cellulitis, yeah, from swimming in that water.

Yeah, the water is just disgusting. And a lot of people get infections and whatnot. And what do you get it? He also got like a ruptured ear drum or a ruptured ear drum. I think he was in the dive tower. Got a ruptured ear drum. So that rolled him back again. So on and on it went.

You also, you know, your reputation kind of starts in buds. In matter of fact, it does start in buds. So, you know, you get that reputation of someone that's just tougher than nails. And that's kind of the reputation that Ryan ended up with. This guy's going to keep going. no matter what we throw out of him he wasn't going to quit yep he would never have quit he would have died first i mean really yeah i i 100% believe it um do you so he graduates goes to sqt you guys are there for sqt graduation or buds graduation was it buds or sqt that you went to

the graduation of buds buds buds okay they've changed it now where you go to the graduation of it sqt yeah i don't think we went to that did he get his trident no okay then yeah at sqt he got it Yeah, later. Yeah. Because that's what they changed it. They used to graduate buds and you'd have the big ceremony. Nowadays, you grad, when you graduate buds, you get like a piece of paper and you get wet and sandy. And they say, all right, you graduate.

Now you're going to SQT. And then you go to SQT. And then they do the big graduation at the end of SQT, which is kind of squared away because you get you tried in and everything. So you guys were there for that graduation? How pumped was, was Ryan at that thing? I think it was the greatest day of his entire life. He had a grin as big as his head. Was Aaron able to make it to that?

Where? I don't think Aaron was there. I honestly don't remember. I don't think he was. Then he gets, what, takes him leave, and then he shows up. He gets orders to seal theme three. This is when I meet him for the first time, where we form up, so he, It's now the spring of 2005, probably like June of 2005.

I don't know when he actually grew. When did he graduate from SQT? Do you know? Or do you know when he got to SEAL Team 3? SQT, I think, I keep thinking December, but I think maybe he left for that in December. Yeah, so he could have showed up at any time, but the SEAL team was on deployment. So when he showed up, there probably wasn't a lot going on. So when probably the first true, like, hey, I'm now at.

at a SEAL team and I'm having interactions with guys was when we formed up Task Unit Bruiser and he's in Charlie Patoon and this is sort of you know his first interactions at the SEAL team you know with them and it was a well it's you know it's called Task Unit Bruser and that was a pretty accurate you know kind of kind of

name for the task unit we definitely had some pipe hitters in there and had a very solid and aggressive attitude, which was awesome. The first trip that we did as a task unit was land warfare. So this is going out to the desert. And it's the first trip that we did. And it's very lucky to have that as your first trip because it's where you kind of, you lay down all the baseline.

And it's really hard training. It's, we went in August or July or August. So it's, it's 110 degrees. It's totally miserable. the heat just comes out of the ground. It's really hard. Ryan was not ready for it. He showed up.

He was in, I don't know how much pizza he ate or when he was on leave in between SQT and showing up to SEAL Team 3. But you could see, he probably thought, oh, cool, I made it. And yeah. Oops. Yeah, so he showed up.

He wasn't in great shape. And the first, I was talking to Laif. talking with Laif about this. So, you know, we do these things, immediate action drills, and you're out in the desert. And, you know, you're basically laying down fire, the other elements moving. And then, you know, then they lay down fire and you move. And it's, it's freaking hard work. You know, you got your body armor on.

You got all your ammo. He was a pig gunner. So he's carrying all kinds of weight. And the first few days, like, he was falling back on, on Iads, which means he wasn't in shape. and so he got some some informal counseling from the the platoon senior chief

the guy nicknamed Z and his platoon chief Tony and lay from like hey man you know like you you got to get in shape and he just completely took it to heart I think he realized like oh yeah I didn't expect this and they assigned Bob Holland lead Bob Holland to be his

his personal mentor and what we call a C daddy, right? Hey, this is going to be your C daddy. And he just started working out like crazy. And this is also where he got the nickname Biggles out there. Because I guess you could say when he showed up there, he didn't really have a six-pack. Yeah, he didn't share that with us.

I don't think he ever had a six-pack. So his nickname. name was Biggles. And then as you know, our machine guns, if you're shooting the 7-62 caliber machine gun, in the old days it was an M-60 machine gun. And that was called a pig. And the pig name just transferred right over to, right over to the Mark 48 machine gun. So that's the pig if you're a pigger. And so what we had was we had Biggles and he was carrying a pig and guys named their machine guns. So it made perfect sense that Biggles named his machine gun pigles. So it was Biggles and Piggles.

And I believe someone, for a while, it was Biggles the desert hippo. That was the full. I knew there was a hippo involved in it. Yeah. That was where I got it. Somebody gave him a purple, a little, like a beanie baby. Yeah, beanie babies. Yep.

But like I said, what was awesome was instead of getting defensive, instead of, you know, he just owned it. and started working out all the time. Actually, there's another story. You know, he was working out, and he was wearing like, um, sort of, I guess you'd say 80s or early 90s workout gloves with like the mesh on top.

Yeah. And in the steel teams, you don't wear gloves to work out, right? Yeah. You're a man. You get calluses. That's what we do. And, uh,

Leif told him, you know, he showed up in the gym. He had these, these mesh, these mesh workout gloves on. And they said, hey, bro, we don't wear gloves in the teams. We get calluses.

He never wore gloves again. And he didn't wear gloves. Even with his weapon. Like he just got the most callous, tough hands again because he took that. He took that to heart. He was changing barrels. Yeah. Hot.

Changing hot barrels. Just he's next level. I know some people were astonished to watch that. That is, that's crazy. That's crazy to be able to do. So we saw this real like transformation. And you could see the other thing that you see is, you know, when someone's, when someone's having a hard time, their attitude really gets revealed, right?

Well, his attitude, he was having a hard time. His attitude was just awesome. And even though, you know, even some guys that were frustrated that he wasn't in great shape as a new guy, I was like, but look at him. Look at his attitude. And so I think he started winning some hearts and minds pretty early. And then what's good? is we did we did uh vehicles next which is pretty low stress but then we went to mid-south uh the the close quarters combat and this is where you know people are still watching him make sure he's in

shape but what really helped him start to gain respect was what you did for americ and that is he was a good shot and it's hard for an older guy to talk smack to a new guy that just beat him in a in a you know, shooting headplates. Sure. And he was a good freaking shot. And so not only that, he was good at the actual procedures of clearing the rooms. And those are all really complex things, you know. It can be very difficult for some guys.

There's a lot going on. There's a lot of procedures to follow. There's a lot of decisions to make very rapidly. And some new guys can really get tripped up in that. And that's where he did that. Well, also. As a matter of fact, one of the other new guys in that platoon didn't make it through CQC. So this is, and imagine you're, you make it through Buds, you make it through SQT, and now you get kicked out of the SEAL teams.

So this type of training is really hard. And this is where, you know, again, Ryan was now winning hearts and minds. He was shooting really well. He was doing well with the, just with the tactics and everything. So that was pretty awesome to see. and there is one his he did not like cottage cheese I've been waiting to ask you wasn't in the desert when somehow somebody found out that he didn't like cottage cheese I don't know if that's when they found out but he was he was on trial in a in a kangaroo court and you know usually I

wasn't around for much of the much of the kangaroo courts but apparently that this was like the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was needed for this one. So I showed up and so yeah, they'd find out that he, not only did he not like cottage cheese. He had like a phobia. A visceral.

Yeah. A gag reflex. A gag reflex. A gag reflex for cottage cheese. So during his trial to see. The sentence. Yeah. He was,

he was being, you know, like, all right, eat this. And it was the funniest, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. So he's, he's trying, like, as if I had asked him to pull me back into a helicopter. Like, he's got that kind of determination on his face.

But what he's trying to do is just get one spoonful of cottage cheese down his mouth. And he's gagging. And he's basically throwing it back up and then trying again. It was hysterical. And again, what made, you know, what made it. so endearing is he's like I said he's trying so hard as if he's trying to save one of his buddies and he's just tried so hard and he's just he gets in there he starts to swallow and it all comes back out it was it was ridiculous was everybody sitting around watching or was it just a few

people oh no it was everyone yeah was that before or after that they made him show you his war face so warface was next Yeah, so we get done with CQC and now we go. The next thing is urban training. And, yeah, this was, so Ryan had this thing that he would do where he would basically walk up to someone and get three centimeters from their face and, like, put these crazy eyes on and they'd like look right at you. And he would do it. You know, he'd do it to the other guys in the platoon, et cetera, et cetera. and so they told

his older guys Chris Kyle Bobby Holland they're like all right You gotta go do that to Jocko now And he's like well that doesn't seem like a great idea Please let me do that And then Leif was telling me the other day They all were telling him hey dude don't worry

Like we got your back Don't worry we got your back If Jock does anything we got your back So sure enough I'm sitting there And quite frankly It kind of started me a little bit bit um you know because i'm standing there and all of a sudden he comes and he had this really funny way of doing it he'd be you know probably like six feet away and he would close that last five feet

10 inches in like a millisecond yeah like boom and he's just right there in your face well when he did that to me i immediately i spun him around and put the choke hold on him and then i put him to sleep and i kind of laid him down gently and it was it was it was a good laugh yeah he he he he's said one time he said jocco's the only man i've ever been terrified ever and that was that was quite an admission coming from him because he wouldn't admit something like that but he freely admitted that one oh that was classic um so that is that is when he got in my got in my face and and got choked yeah those i always started it when i was in a platoon where guys would try and look if you wanted to do jiu jitza with me cool you we train i get you in a choke you tap

I'll let you go. But then I, when it started getting more people try and sneak up on me and catch me. And then I told guys, I was like, hey, if you sneak up on me, you're going to sleep. And you're probably getting locked in a locker or something like that when you wake up.

But, yeah, so that was, that was classic ride. Freaking classic ride. Well, it startled you when, when he came up to you. Yeah. So you just reacted. Yeah.

Yeah, my reaction. Not that you wouldn't have done it anyway, even if you knew he was doing it. No, he was definitely going to get choked. Yeah, whether I knew about her, not whether or that when it started that he had to wrestle with you occasionally wasn't there times that he probably got he probably got queued up as a as a opponent a few times you know because he wrestled and he's a good strong wrestler he didn't really know jiu jitsu and unfortunately if you know

jihitsu you're going to you're going to beat the person that just knows wrestling actually i mean I trained jiu-jitsu with him after he got, after he was blind. And I thought that was amazing. And I had known that I had seen guys competing in jiu-jitsu and wrestling that were blind. And so I was like, dude, we got to try this. And sure enough, you know, he was, it's a great sport to do. You don't need to see. It's all feel.

And so that was awesome. So those are times. But yeah, there was, I would train a lot with the guys, a lot of jihis-to-with-guise with guys. So did he get volunteered a few times? I'm sure he did. I think that's what kind of what I remember here. Well, Chris Kyle choked him out half a dozen times.

Yeah, yeah. At least. There's a whole, look, we have jiu-jitsu, we have wrestling. Those are cool sports. But in the SEAL teams, you also have something called van fights, which is, you know, you're in a van. You got 12 guys from the platoon in a van. And, you know, there's going to, it's kind of like, you know,

I've, I've kids. You have kids. You take a road trip with your kids. You can only make it, you know, four miles before the kids are fighting in the back. So that's what the SEAL teams are, a bunch of freaking kids. And you put them in a van together, and they're going to fight. And so you have van fighting. So there's a lot of people that have been unconscious in vans before.

Oh, gosh. In the SEAL teams. But, you know, as we progress, the good thing is, you know, he was doing a good job. And these kind of things, these kind of interactions are, This is like this is the this is how you this is the this is the bonding right this is critical this is the this is the friendship This is the hassling each other. This is what we're doing so None of this was abnormal in fact if you're not in that van fight if you're not getting choked by the The tasking commander if those things aren't happened. It's like I would be worried if I'm not that guy

So this was just kind of normal rough house bonding going on and And the thing is, is that Ryan was, especially once we made it through CQC, and he performed well in CQC and was a good shot in CQC and cleared the houses properly in CQC. And he kept training during CQC too. He was, you know, working all day and then he'd go and drag the tire at night. And the other thing that happened was, this is where he got a lot of extracurricular training was he, if someone was working out and they needed someone. to work out with, they would grab him. Be like, hey, Biggles, we're going to run. I'm going to run tires. Come with me.

Hey, Biggles, I'm going to do a pull-up workout. Come with me. And so he was just, look, when you're a new guy, you're doing what you're told. And since he was out of shape in desert, it was like, okay, we're going to make sure he's in shape. And he got to be in outstanding shape. We also, by the time we, now we're in, like, we get done with that kind of training. And one of the big trips that we did was we went up to Nellis Air Force Base, which is outside of, which is outside of Vegas.

We had a ridiculously awesome time training and then you're in Vegas. So we're training and gambling and partying and everything else. But one of the things that was really memorable was I would always want the younger guys to be put in charge of operations. so that they could see what it's like to be the assault force commander, to be the mobility commander, to be the ground force commander, where instead of,

like as a new guy, Ryan's in charge of his weapon and whatever he's holding security on. And so one of the times up at Nellis, big giant clearance problem to go assault a target that was in the middle of this urban training site, and we're like, all right, Ryan,

you're in charge. you're the ground force commander for this thing. And his eyes got really, really big. And he was, you know, he said, you know, like, well, who know what I'm doing? It's any, the thing is, he did. He knew, and he's smart, and he stepped up. And what's awesome is once you, I mean, imagine going from just being in charge of your weapon and your area of responsibility, your field of fire, and then all of a sudden you're in charge

of 40 guys that are assaulting a target through a city. it opens up your eyes so much. And, you know, he did that run and you could see that he could do it. And he did it. And so that was a huge step up. And by the way, that's nothing new. That's like that happened to me when I was a new guy.

When you have a good leader, you know, they're going to put you in charge of what's happening. So you open up your aperture. And so that's, this just shows that by the time we were getting ready to go on deployment, like he was freaking squared away and awesome guy that the boys, the boys loved them at this point.

I know before deployment he met Kelly and even some of the guys met her and were impressed. Like, damn, okay. Good job. So that was kind of the workup. And then it was time for us to go on deploy. So now when what did you guys what did you guys know about like the deployment cycle of the seal teams?

Did you did you know it was a six month deployment sort of a standard Navy deployment? We knew that much, but at the time we didn't know exactly where we was going and he was only allowed to to share just so much with us. But we knew he was going for sure. And when he eventually got to Ramadi, we knew what that was and where that was and what was going on. Yeah, it was interesting. We weren't supposed to go to Ramadi. So Ryan must have come home on, did he go home on pre-deployment leave? This would have been like.

No, I don't think he did because I came down here in April. Okay. To spend maybe a week. I don't know, a few days I was here to see him. Eric couldn't come. But I was here to see him for a little bit before they left. So at that time, we were going to Baghdad. And the plan was, and I briefed the boys before we left like, hey, we're going to Baghdad.

I actually went on a pre-deployment site survey to Baghdad and met the unit we're going to be working with and started to turn over with the seals. We were going to take their place. And then while everyone was on pre-deployment leave, that's when we got the change in deployment that we were going into Ramadi. And we knew what Ramadi was. We knew the situation on the ground there. we knew what was happening. And so when we deployed, we,

I wouldn't go so far as to say we truly understood what it was going to be like on the ground, but we had an idea that it was definitely going to be a target-rich environment and a lot of heavy fighting. I don't think anyone would have suspected

that it would have been the amount of fighting that it was, but yeah, that's what we went into. And so at what point did you realize that Ryan was in Ramadi? Well, we got a phone call. And I still remember him calling, you know, guess what me and Chris did last night? You know, that kind of thing. Because when Chris would take a combat nap, he'd let Ryan get on the gun.

And sometimes he'd start off some stories, not realizing that his mother was listening in on the other line. And some of those got pretty. tough but I knew it was him calling because we recognized it was an odd number coming up on a sat phone oh we were constantly waiting for calls when both of the boys were deployed we had our home phone forwarded to our cell phones and so we didn't miss it yeah where was Aaron when we were in Ramada you know six where was where was Aaron six he got out see he was active duty from he graduated boot camp and October 2002.

Oh, so if he did four years, he was probably out. So he was already out and he was working for in Orange County. And yeah, so he was in, yeah, he was still in Orange County. Yeah, he did two tours. So at this point, you're really just tracking Ryan. Yes. How often did you hear from him when he was on deployment? Well, it was probably three or four times at least.

And generally it was always a. the middle of the night, you know, that we'd get a call. He wasn't able to say a lot. Yeah. But, yeah, the lines were monitored. And so you could only say, you know, so much about what was happening. Well, he was so excited, you know, to be around guys like you, like Chris and everybody else. And that's why he always started his stories, guess what happened?

Guess what we did last night? and he cherished. He cherished those times, you know, with the guys. He wanted so hard to be accepted, you know, for what he was. And to be right up there with the rest of him in terms of skill, determination and everything else. He was always a determined guy, but he realized he was a completely different league that he was joining. Yeah, he, he,

First of all, he worked out on deployment. If he wasn't in the field, he was working out. And we had all kinds of, you know, we had workouts that we were doing over there. Like one thing was we had this thing where we'd pick up a, we had a dummy, like a, you know, we'd pick up this dummy. And sprint, it was like a probably, you know, 80 meters down and 80 meters back and then drag a tire 80 meters down and 80 meters back. and that was because we realized like, oh, we're going to be carrying. We've got to be able to buddy carry each other. And he was in really good shape there because, you know, what are we doing?

We're just working, working out. The food wasn't, you know, food wasn't great, but, you know, he was just focused on doing an awesome job. And the other thing is the importance of those machine gunners, during a gun fight and having those guys. And the machine gunners in the SEAL teams are, they work freaking hard. And they have a course that they go through. And the course that they go through

to be a machine gunner in the SEAL teams is awesome. And they become just kind of like one with their weapon. And so when you're, you know, in Ramadi, those machine gunners were so important because you can't maneuver on the battlefield if someone's not putting down heavy volumes of cover fire. And that's what, that's what Ryan was doing,

and he was doing it like, you know, a champ. And, you know, I think it was, you know, I think it was, It was strange, I think, for the new guys. Mm-hmm. Because the new guys, like, to have, to be, to be a seal machine gunner, the amount of going into that time period, the number of times that, you know, a machine gunner would use, you know, half their ammo or three quarters of their ammo

or all of their ammunition on an operation wasn't very often. but for a guy in task unit bruiser, a machine gunner to go out and come back with, you know, having spent 400, 500, 600 rounds in a gunfight was common. We had countless times where machine gunners were out of ammo. So and the older guys knew that that's not very common. But for someone like Ryan, it was like, this must just be what? deployments are like. And yeah, so it was kind of,

it was kind of crazy. And even as I talked to, you know, some of the guys that were new guys in that task unit, you know, they didn't ever have a deployment like that again. I had some alone time with Chris, you know, after Ryan passed away. And I remember him telling me several times that Ryan,

would step out on the street and was just absolutely laying it down, you know, so that his element could move and trying to stay away from the walls and so forth. But they said it looked like something out of a bad movie. Yeah. There was times, I remember one time it's, I was, the, the platoon got contacted or one of the, one of the elements got contacted. And there, we, we sent the QRF and fire support tanks to go and support them. And I'm watching them come back. And it looked like World War II. There was a tank in the front of the column.

There was the seal platoon in staggered formation, you know, scanning windows walking down the street. And then another tank at the aft end of them. It looked like World War II. And I mean, Romadi at the time, there was, you know, tank shooting man gun rounds in the buildings. was tanks pushing, you know, driving over vehicles in the street, driving through walls. It was, it was, it was not normal.

It was not a normal deployment for, certainly for, for seals at that time. Chris said he was absolutely fearless. And he would stand out there, you know, just whipping against the walls and, you know, kicking up dust all around. But he cared about, he cared about those guys. He did not want to fail. I think that's why when you were talking about how hard he worked out, I'm positive. He just, he wanted to be the best he could be and support his team.

That brotherhood meant everything to him behind and just do everything he could to help him. And it was that what you just said was completely obvious to everyone. Everyone saw that that's, that that's what he would do and want. wanted to do and he would do anything for the rest of us. That was, it was blatantly obvious. It was blatantly obvious the way he carried himself, whether it was going out on patrol, whether it was working out in between operations,

the way he cared for his weapon, the way just everything that he did was with that. It was blatantly obvious. There was not one doubt in anyone's mind about what his attitude was. It was 100%, what a frog man should be through and through. He wanted to be somebody you could rely on.

Yeah, he didn't want to let you down. Ever. It's the way he was built. He started off that way. He was always a determined kid. Yeah, and a tough bastard. Yeah. And just like a tough.

So as we're on, as we're on deployment, you're watching the news. Are you, I mean, are you glued to the, are you glued to the news every night? Because I remember like,

this time, frame even before we left watching the news at night al-a-lombar province two soldiers killed al-a-lambar province two marines killed al-on-bar province and most of that the vast majority of those casualties in al-a-lambar province were in the city of romadi how much of that were you seeing and thinking about when we were over there i read the news more than than debby does and i i think we went through so much of it watching for errand you know during the war and i think and i think thought, and we got Aaron back in one piece. And in Ryan's case, I think that we had gotten a little bit more accustomed to it.

I thought he was indestructible. I did. He just seemed to have that aura about him that everything's going to be all right. So that's, you know, why it was such a shock, you know, when he was hit so, hit so bad. But yeah, I thought he was indestructible. I thought he's going to come back and he's going to be fine. I didn't always feel that way. Yeah, I know.

I remember when Aaron was deployed, even the first time, I just always had a piece that he would return. We wouldn't, we would not get that visit or a phone call. I never thought about a phone call as much as the visit. I mean, there was times when I'd be gone from home and I knew something had happened. This is with Aaron, and I would drive up to the house. slowly and looked like up there to see if there was a car in front of our house. But I remember realizing when Ryan was gone, I didn't have that same complete peace. I knew God would protect him and I fully trusted that.

But I just wasn't sure that he really was going to come home without something happening. I don't know what, but. And then the phone call came. When, what time of day was the phone call? It was about 1.30 in the morning. 116 a.m. April or August 2nd. Wrates you up in the middle of the night. The phone rang.

Obviously, it's never anything good when the phone rings then. And I could immediately tell that. it was just based on the background noise and everything else. It was a call from his command, and it was Colin Green. Well, the phone was on my side of the bed, and I answered the phone, and he said, may I please speak to Mr. Eric Job? And I said, this is Debbie. Can I help you?

No, may I speak to Mr. Eric Job? I said, I'm his wife. Can you tell me? And, I mean, it was pretty obvious that it had to do with Ryan. And so I gave the phone to him and, you know. I remember Laif, Laif thought he was going to die. Laif thought that, Leif, you know, when I talked to him on the radio, he said he, he was horrified. And he thought that Ryan was going to die.

You know, just And what we talked about earlier And his attitude He was doing his job Ryan Biggles was doing his job To the utmost That's what he was doing And these bounding overwatches

There's Army unit Iraqi infantry U.S. Army infantry on the ground below There's such a high probability of them being attacked so we as seals would in these cases do what we called bounding overwatches and that's go

from one building hold security there for a while look for enemy while another group was in another building and then just bound from building to building and so it's 110 degrees out this was several hours into the mission and by the way before the mission

guess what you do you plan you do the brief you do the insertion in the back of the hum v. It's 100 degrees in the back of the humvies. You get down there. Now you're on patrol to get to infill. Now you're running up and downstairs. It's 110 degrees, as I said, you got 80 pounds of gear on. You know, Ryan's got his pig, which is 20 pounds or whatever, 18 pounds, 600 rounds of ammunition. That's seven pounds each. This is, you know, body armor, helmet, pistol, water, grenades, radio.

You end up very, very heavy. So he's got 80, 90 pounds of gear on, and people get tired. And they start to kind of, you know, get complacent. Ryan did not. He was, you know, doing his job to the utmost. And, you know, that's why it's, you know, whenever we talk about this,

we always talk about the fact that Ryan had his weapon up. It's so easy to say, oh, you know, I don't see anything right now. I'm just going to go ahead and put my weapon down at the low ready or set it down on this wall or put it on the ground. And to have your weapon up after two, three, four hours of this, that's discipline. And that's someone that's not going to let their friends down. We were told that if he had not had his weapon up, he'd have been killed. instantly. There's no doubt in my mind. Yeah. There's no doubt in my mind.

And we were told on the phone, when we got the call, I could tell it was serious, but at the same time, they were trying to give us the facts. And I felt it was being minimized a little bit. He said that Ryan's lost his right eye. He's been badly injured. We think that we've saved his left eye. and my mind is going a million miles a minute

and I said well you know what does that mean well we think you know with proper care that you know they'll be able to save the eyesight and his left eye and I thought I remember thinking of myself well he loves the team so much do they have seals with one eye I think they do so I thought you know that that was that was going to be all right but well they first told us too that I think the first details where Ryan has been shot in the head. It's not life-threatening.

He's lost his right eye, and we're working to save the left. For hours, we just, of course, we got up. I couldn't go back to, how, I couldn't understand. How could he have been shot in the head? And he didn't die. It made no sense to me, but it was much later we found out that because he had his weapon up, it was nothing but a miracle

because the bullet put a hole in his weapon and from what we were told and saw, we saw the weapon, it made a 90-degree turn and went out the back. But the blast from it hitting there, it hit his head so hard, the blast of it, and his sunglasses, it shattered his scent,

and that's what went, he had so much shrapnel in his head, and the damage to his eye. I held his weapon in my hands. We got a chance to visit his cage in the Batcave. And it was remarkable because when I first looked at it, there was one small hole through the receiver on the side. And then, of course, everything else was shattered coming out the other side.

But, yeah, that's what we were told initially. Lost his right eye, but we think that we might have saved his left eye. And things are going to be all right. Later on, I find out that he was hit so hard that, as you said, they thought he was going to die. But he had the composure to ask him, who's the medic, the seal medic? Johnny Kim. Sit me up. Yeah, sit me up so I can breathe because he was choking on his own blood.

And Johnny said he had the composure to stand up and walk unassisted. down the stairs, Johnny said that he had his hand on his shoulder, but that he could see at the time because he was walking unassisted down the stairs. But Johnny said it was one of the greatest feats of endurance that he had ever seen in his life. Yeah. For him to do that. It's astounding. Yeah, I was talking to Laif, and Laif, you know, was like,

and Johnny Kim said this too, like Leif grabbed his hand because he sees, you know, pool of blood, headshot, you think the worst. Yep, and Leif is holding his hand, telling him hang in there, hang in there. And Ryan, you know, sit me up. They sit him up. And he goes, I'm okay. And Leif just was kind of beside himself. Like, this is the toughest guy ever.

Put me in, coach. I'm okay. And then, you know, Johnny got, they got the casualty evacuation together. And, you know, that's another thing, you know, when Laif, you know, talks about Chris, who was with him on, was with Ryan on the rooftop. He just said when he came up on the radio and said, Biggles is down, we need a Corman now, like in the voice that Leif knew something was really wrong. So you get how much longer after that call, when was the next update that you guys got? Well, during the conversation, the next thing turned to, I remember asking, well, what's been done to the, what's been done to the Savage that hit him? Somebody laughed in the background.

They said, that's what I'm talking about. Were you in the room with him? No. No, that call was coming from the task group, which was in Fallujah. And so, yeah, I, yeah, that was not, we didn't call until we had, we had to get told that you were told officially before we could start making calls. Yeah, that was my second reaction was anger, you know. My son was indestructible, but somebody, you know, hit him, hit him a bad blow. and I wanted something done about it.

And they did. They went out, did something about it. How long did it take for Ryan to get home? Oh, gosh. At first we thought we were going to Germany. We didn't know. They took him to Blod first and worked on him there, did some type of surgery, I think.

Stabilized, I don't, they had, you know, this was the right side was completely opened up from what I understand. And they were doing whatever they needed to to relieve the pressure on the left. And I think he was there 24 hours. He was there a pretty short period of time. 12 hours maybe. And then they took him to Germany. Yeah.

And we got updates. So Bobby Holland had been wounded and he was in Germany. He was already in Germany. And so, and he passed us updates, you know, that he saw bagels. And he called us. We got a call from him. That was one of the. the best things of the whole couple days was, yeah, Bobby called and said he was there with him.

And Bob was, you know, joking with him. And Ryan squeezed his hand and had a little smile. And just to know that, we knew, you know, at least that confirmed that he was alive. His brain was okay. Still didn't understand how he could be shot in the head, which is what they told us first. but not have complete brain injury or, you know, I don't know. But to hear that he had smiled and was reacting to jokes was just the best thing that could have ever happened right then.

We were waiting at the doors at Bethesda. And we see the ambulance as an entourage, like a real entourage, and people lining on both sides and people standing inside the doors waiting for the ambulance to get there. And they brought his stretcher right through, and I'll never forget seeing the tuft of hair. His whole head was completely bandaged,

but there was that tuft of hair that are remembered from him as a baby, sticking out. That's about all we could see. And they said, you know, he's not going to be able to talk to you or respond. he was in almost like an induced coma. Yeah, medically induced coma is what they were telling us.

And he said it was going to be a wild, yeah. The thing for us was, you know, like you said, it seemed like he could see on his way out when he was conscious. So none of us had the medical foresight to understand how things are still. degrading as time goes on and so you know I I was kind of leaning towards yeah he's gonna lose one eye and we'll freaking get him back over here you know like let's go that was sort of you know once we got over the the initial was he's not gonna live but you know that that was my first call with Leif was Leif was not optimistic and

then you know it was like oh he could see leaving he was standing up, he walked out of there. Then it was like, okay. And my attitude was, he's going to be good to go. You know, that was sort of the initial, my initial feeling and hope was, we're going to be good to go. Well, we were told later on that the aircraft that he was on, that they evacuated, that they needed to fly at a certain altitude because of the pressure difference. Yeah.

And we were told later on that because of the pressure difference. that had affected the optic nerve on its left eye. And ultimately that's what caused it. It was the pressure that damaged the nerve. And there's nothing they can do for the optic nerve to repair it. So that's the way he came into the hospital. And it was several days before we were able to speak to him. Well, it was early Wednesday morning we got the call.

and then they flew us by Friday to San Diego. No, to Bethesda. So we were there. I think we got there Friday night. But because he, yeah, we did. Because then he was scheduled to arrive, I think at whatever time it was on Saturday. And he actually, he was scheduled,

I just thought he was scheduled to arrive at 5.30 Saturday evening. and he arrived. We got a call. We were in the cafeteria. Got a call that he was coming in about a half an hour early. So we rushed down there to the ER or to that entrance where they were going to bring him. And yeah, there comes the, you know,

the police escort in the front on a motorcycle, and we were standing outside the doors. And that's one of the hardest things at that point then. I mean, obviously it was great. He was alive, but just to see that, how they brought him in and the support. I thought there were multiple people coming in because of the police escort, the whole thing, from coming to the airport. I think we didn't even know at first that that was him that was coming in. Yeah, there was probably more people.

Well, I saw the hair sticking out of the top of the band. Well, I mean, before they even parked and pulled them out. But, yeah, then he had so much stuff on him, machines. and, I mean, laying on the, there was like, everything was like this high, laying on the gurney, whatever they call it. And you could hardly see him at all, just barely. And they told us it would probably be a couple hours. They needed to get him settled.

But that was hard. He was in that medically induced, coma for a pretty good amount of time. I know we were getting updates from Aaron was giving, was passing updates on how he was doing. I know when he did eventually, when he got out of that medically induced coma, I remember the first call I had with him. and he was just telling me, asking me, sir, let me come back. Let me come back. I might not be able to see the enemy right now, but I can smell him.

I remember he said that. That was his, he was fired up. I also, you know, they were saying that there was like, oh, he had some damage to some part of his brain which now cut out his filter. Oh, yes. Which I'm not sure if that's the medical factor. If he just decided he was cleared hot to say whatever he wanted. No, it was different than it used to be.

I mean, we used to joke and he could be sarcastic at times. Yeah, but came up, came out. This was definitely more so. He was going hard. I remember General Brown visited. He was the top special ops guy at that time. and General Brown was just laughing his head off. Oh, yeah.

What's crazy now did I think about it? General Brown was in Ramadi when that happened. Yeah, I think you're right. I forgot that. So he was the four-star general in charge of Socom and Ryan got hit in the morning. Mark got killed a little while after. And we had a visit from,

General Brown that early afternoon like just after lunch and I actually had known General Brown from when I was the Admiral's aide and he you know he was completely you know sympathetic and and just very understanding of the whole situation as a matter of fact he came out that night we put Mark on the the angel flight the hero flight going home and he was standing there with the rest of the platoon and the rest of the Marines, the 3-8 Marines had also lost a guy that day. Corporal Joe Thompson

and so he was getting, it was all of us out there. The Marines, the 3-8 Marines and us all out there on the line saying goodbye to our guys and General Brown was right there with him. Ryan did not know

that Mark was gone for days. Yeah. You know, after he got to Bethesda. and I was in the room when he got the news. Who told him? You remember? He said it was Chris. He was a guy that was there to help us a bit.

He was assigned to us while we were. He was assigned to us. And just the way it happened, Chris was in the room and he was awake. And Chris mentioned to me, he says, I think we need to let Ryan know. what's happened. And just the agonized reaction that he had. He just said, as Mark's gone, he couldn't believe it, couldn't believe it. He thought, you know, at that time, he was highly medicated and everything else.

And I don't think he believed it, you know, at first. And Chris had to reemphasize it, but it was a side of, Ryan, I'd never seen before. I mean, that kind of agony over it because he thought a great deal of Mark and losing anybody. You know, it was really tough, but just the shock of where he was,

I don't think he even understood where he was for a while. I think for a while he thought he was in a hospital, you know, back in Iraq or something. But, God, that was one of the hardest things I ever saw in my whole life. I've never seen that side of him before It's like Almost

Watching a terrified little boy You know at the time That's kind of how it struck you It wasn't the case but that was my first reaction It was It was One of the hardest things I ever saw ever What you said about

Ryan seeming indestructible That was definitely Mark was the same way. And, and I, and this is talking to guys from the Army, they kind of thought the same thing. It was a, it was a huge, it was a devastating, uh, hit to morale. Because for months we'd been going out and, you know,

been really, uh, doing an outstanding. job of killing the enemy and doing it, you know, from places and from, you know, without the enemy even understanding what was happening. And it was, it was so, the Army and the Marine Corps were so happy. You know, they, you know, again, just, just imagine you've got like, um, an army couple, an army umvv gets blown up by an iED kills two or three guys a day later seal snipers kill two iedd and placers in that spot and we did that kind of thing like oh people shop r pg killed a killed a marine oh a day later seals kill seal snipers kill a uh uh RPG gunner in that area

So our relationship with the Army and the Marine Corps was awesome. And we were kind of, we felt indestructible. And they viewed us as indestructible. And this is like, this is coming from, you know, some of their leadership that told me, this is good. This hurts us. And so I'm sure, you know, when, when Mark got killed, it was devastating for Army guys. for Marines. So for Ryan to wake up and hear that,

I can't imagine how that made him feel. Yeah, intellectually, I knew that he could have been injured or killed. But that was my shield. You know, he's indestructible. He's around other indestructible people. And there hadn't been a loss, you know, up to that point. And he was the new guy. So my feeling at the time he's going to be put a bit more in the background.

You know, he's not going to be as exposed as the more experienced guys on the team. And Ryan, Ryden wouldn't have liked that to begin with. He wouldn't have tolerated that. But that's the picture that was in my mind's eye at the time. So you were with him when the word came that, that the hope for his vision was gone. I was sitting at the end of his bed. So this is just to back up a little.

This is like three weeks, right? It's about three weeks of, they're trying to, they're testing, they're shining lights, they're doing all this thing, they're doing x-rays and all this stuff, because that's the word we're getting, is that they're, you know, they're gonna try this, they're looking at this,

and they think he sees some light. So our attitude, who's very positive, you know, maybe naively positive, but we all wanted to believe he's going to be okay. Well, Ryan had been telling me that. He said, I think I can see some light. I think I can see some dark. This had been going on.

That's why I'm backing up a little bit. I'm thinking of myself, maybe there's some hope here. Well, I was in his room when the ophthalmic surgeon came in. And Ryan started right in on it. I think I can see some shadows. I think I can see some light and just right to the point about as blunt as you could

possibly be, but it's what he needed to hear. He said, Ryan, you're blind in both eyes. You are never going to see again, ever. And I don't think two seconds went by. And Ryan said, well, I guess I'll just be the best

blind Navy seal ever. And I was just absolutely floored. it was really hard to process. It's just hard to explain. I mean, I'm hearing at the same time that there's a life-changing situation that's happening right there on the spot, right in front of me. And that's his first reaction. And I was just, I was stunned.

I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. Well, the surgeon went into a little bit more detail, and Ryan sat there stoic, just listening. And it was all like, it was difficult for me to maintain my composure, because my hope was gone then too. But I think I took it worse than he did. He was so determined, you know, that he was going to make

the best of it somehow. But that's the kind of attitude that he always had. He just never quit. And he was stubborn. He was stubborn. We were talking the other day when, I don't know, what was he, seven years old in Portland? Three.

He was three. The table incident. We're having a big family gathering. Christmas dinner. And we had been trying to get the children to say, may I please be excused from the table. And there was one of these, you hear all the chatter, all the family chatter, a lot of people there in the house.

And all of a sudden, for some reason, there was one of those long, awkward pauses where it's quiet. He goes, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do it. I remember looking around it to everybody else, and I thought, this is going to be a real problem. He is going to be out of control. unless we get this under control. The dreaded test of wills between father and son. Yeah, and I thought, if I don't win this battle, it's all over.

And I said, well, you're going to sit in the other room in the dark with the door shut until you do. Okay. Just like that. So he was marched in there. Well, he was still at the table. He just stayed at the table because he wouldn't ask to be excused. So, well, so he's in the other room with the door shut, the lights off. And he hears everybody in there having a great time.

So about every half hour, I'd get up, I'd go poke my head in the door. Are you ready to say that? And he was like, no, he just shake his head. I'm not going to do it. I don't know who was more relieved. But three hours later, this is a young kid. Here's the big party going on. He's not a part of it.

It's all by himself. I'm not going to do it. It wasn't upset. No. Finally, after three hours, I poked my head in. All right, can I please be excused? And I thought, like I said, I don't know who was more relieved. I think I probably was.

So I'm really glad that he did because he could have sat there all night long. I mean all night long. And he would have done it too. Yeah. But and I knew then, I remember telling Debbie, I said, if we can channel that kind of stubbornness in the right decade, he's going to be somebody. And he did. He did. We were privileged to be the parents of the man that wrote those words that you started off, that you started off with.

privileged to be his parents in so many ways. And then, you know, of course, after he was wounded, he, uh, he went on to accomplish things that I didn't really think were possible. But, um, climbing a mountain, a 14,000 foot mountain when you're completely stone cold blind is, is difficult. Of course, everybody knows about the hunting incident, you know, later on down the road. But it's the way, it's the way that he was. He wouldn't quit.

That was the same attitude that, you know, when I talked to him after we all got the news and then we started making calls to him. And, you know, he told me again, I can still come on deployment. I can come back. I can smell them. Bring me back. And told me I'm going to be the best blind guy ever. And actually, you know, he told Laif, the best news of, I come.

could have gotten because I don't have to worry about it anymore. It's the best new time. Now I know what I'm going to do. Now I know what I'm going to do. And, you know, I know Leif was, Leif kept it together on the call, but I mean, you know, like you said, it goes from being a kind of a minor inconvenience in life to have only one eye to totally different life that you're living with no eyes.

and, you know, Leif went outside and just cried for probably half an hour. But when we would think about his attitude, who are we? Who are we? Well, he told me on the phone that there was some discussion about the Navy keeping him as a Bud's instructor as long as he was with a sighted instructor. And he told me on the phone, he said, Dad, I've been an operator. I can't do that.

I can't go back. Well, so I, Admiral McGuire, who was in charge of the SEALs at the time, because there was, you know, the first reaction was like, okay, if he wants to stay in, and I heard there's like, oh, well, what could he do? And I talked to Admiral McGuire. And I said, sir, Ryan Job wants to stay in the teams.

and Admiral Wyer said as long as Ryan Job wants to as long as Ryan Job wants to be in the SEAL teams then we'll have a job for him Mm-hmm. Yeah, he just said a dad, I've been an operator and I can't go back. So he wanted to contribute more.

Yeah. He knew what things, you know, would have been like. He would have been a freaking awesome instructor. I can tell you that. He would have been an awesome instructor because of one example. But, but, you know, that's, it is like a thing in the SEAL teams, you know, you want to be in a platoon. That's where you want to be.

You don't want to be anywhere else. And, yeah, that was his attitude. Yeah. We, you know, we, we, we came home from that deployment. You know, ultimately, he was going to carry on with his life, which was, which was awesome. And like you said, it was it was just triumph after triumph, you know, whether it was getting married to Kelly, moved out to Arizona, ends up going to college. And, you know, studying. We ended up having a, we went out, Tassi, a Brouser went out in 2008, April of 2008.

to DC and you know they were given out basically it was it was a ceremony for Mikey Monsore Medal of Honor and then they did a bunch of awards for the guys in Tasking a bruiser including including Ryan and he had his dog out there had Trey out there yeah and it was just awesome awesome to see him and and see how he was doing just driving all on just totally inspirational to watch that happen and and then like you said climbs mount reneer 14,000 feet yeah camp patriot camp patriot dot org still still a group that's out there but they took him and a couple other veterans to climb mount mount raneer 14,000 feet and it's

not a it's a freaking tough climb challenge for someone that's blind trying to place your feet you know he he was roped up you know to a couple of experienced climbers but they

even they were in awe because it was difficult difficult to do because it was more strenuous I think constantly searching for your footing and everything else and he just and not only that he had a pack on They said it was just awesome to watch them.

Well, and then even the next year, he climbed it in 2008, summited 2009. He went back and packed up to base camp for the next group that was going to summit. So he carried gear up to Camp Mirror. Yeah, he was really strong. So he could help the next group. We saw him. We all linked up again too. Well, not everyone, but October of 2008.

So the Navy SEAL Foundation flew everyone out to New York because they were going to announce the beginning of the ship, the USS Michael Monsor. And I guess Ryan was going to be, you know, was going to speak at this event. And, you know, of course, we're all working and doing our thing. And I think Ryan told Laif, you know, if you don't come to this thing,

I'm never going to talk to you again because he wanted us to go see him doing his thing. And they like what they did is they had some of the other wounded warriors on like a video explaining, hey, you know, I've been wounded. But this is, you know, my job. This is what I would do. I'd do it again. Just very moving video. And then when the video was done with these other wounded seals that were talking about, their job. doing their job.

The lights came up and Ryan walked out and he said, I'm Ryan Job and I approve this message. He explained the same thing. But it was also funny because, you know, he kind of,

I guess, asked the Navy Seal Finan, what do you want me to talk about? And they gave him a speech. And he goes, I can't read a speech. I'm blind. So this is not a good,

this is not good protocol for you all. And that's actually where Laif because Ryan did guilt trip Laif into going out there. That's how Laif met his. Matt, Jenna. Yep, that's how he met his bride, Jenna Lee. So, yeah. And then you were mentioning the elk.

So again, Camppatria.org, Ryan called Laf and said, hey, I'm doing a hunt. I'm going to hunt an elk. I got it all set up. And Laf said, oh, awesome. He's, you know, Ryan, do you want to go? Lave's like, 100%. Give me the dates.

Gave him the dates. And Lif's like, cool, got it. Lave just had to cancel his 10-year reunion for the Naval Academy and his hotel and travel and all that. I didn't know about that part. But Lave doesn't care about any of that. He wanted to take care of his brother. And man, what a beast of a bull.

So what they did for people that are wondering, they had like a video. monitor or a video camera set up to the scope the weapon was dialed in and actually the voice mic he had a voice mic yep and and so Laif's watching the crosshairs and where they are and they actually had to go out took them a couple hours to get in a position because you you know you got to get a good shot and it took him a couple hours and then just just got an awesome shot put the bull down And Laif was telling me Ryan wanted to shoot it again. And Laf's like, no, it's down.

He's like, well, let me just put another one in it. So Laif was able to restrain him from doing that. From ruining the whole thing. I think he kind of felt like he was freed up to say whatever he wanted. He had a kind of a canned speech that he would give when they were down in Arizona. because I think he was asked to speak at several different organizations. And he was down there one time. I remember him calling me up and telling me he did this.

Remember he was given his speech down there. And for some reason it ended up a little early. And they made the mistake of opening it up to questions. And the question was along the lines of, what do you think about the new administration, a servant under the new administration? And I probably shouldn't use that kind of language, but he said, well, you wouldn't catch me serving under this piece of crap.

And he called me up and told me that. I said, you can't say that. You can't do that. And he goes, what are they going to do? What are they going to do? Fire me? Yeah, fire me? Like so, what came up, came out.

Yeah, no. But he knew what he was doing. And he did it on purpose. He was completely unfiltered. It was wild. Yeah. It was freaking hilarious to be around. Yeah.

And you had to be on your toes. And there's going to be some collateral damage. But, you know, he was going to speak his mind. And I don't think anyone was going to say, no. No. No. Except for, I guess, maybe he's old man. Yeah.

He ends up. Kelly gets pregnant. And I guess Kelly had said, hey, don't tell anyone. And he told everybody. Again, he's going to just, sure, I won't.

He ends up telling everyone. And then, you know, the thing is, oh, what are you going to name it? If it's a girl, what are you name it's a boy? Oh,

doesn't matter. Ryan Job. Yeah. He ends up, you know, graduates with a degree in business administration, gets a 4.0,

4.0. GPA, which is amazing. Submitting his final paper the night before he went into the hospital for surgery. Yeah. His diploma passed in the mail after he passed away. So is an amazing thing. So September 24th, 2009. And at this point, there had been, the surgeries had kind of, at least on the surface,

I know it's not a reality, but on the surface, they'd become kind of routine. because he was getting so many surgeries. And this was his 20-second surgery. Again, like there was so many surgeries. And it just didn't seem like there was a threat. Didn't seem like anything seemed like he was, didn't seem like anything could happen. Surgery went well.

They were pleased with how it turned out and they expected good results. He needed live blood flow to that orbit to that eye area that he had lost because it kept getting infected. And so they grafted an artery through his temple somehow. I don't remember the details. And it went well. Yeah, I spoke with him right after the surgery, and he had survived the surgery.

I happened to be over having lunch with the pastor, the church that we've been going to a few times. And my phone rings. And it's him. And I said, how are you feeling? I mean, how's it going? And when he spoke, I could tell he sounded congested, you know, on the phone. And I said, well, you sound good, but you sound a little congested.

He goes, yeah, but I'm not out of the woods yet. And I remember thinking, just offhandedly, That was a little odd, you know, for him to say something like that. But I'm not out of the woods yet. Just wasn't characteristic of him. And there was some more just mundane conversation about this or that. And we had to go. And the last words he ever said to me was, I love you, Dad.

I said, I love you, but love you, Ryan. Love you, Dad. And the next morning he was gone. Well, that night he was gone. Debbie was down there. I wasn't. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful that I had that.

I'm still grateful to this day that I had that. Yeah. So you really never know. You just don't know. Every minute, every hour that we have, it's a gift. And he was a gift. He was a gift to us. He really truly was.

We had the funeral. It was out in Scottsdale. And obviously, every guy that could get out there. from the teams. We posted up out there. Laif spoke. I got some words that Laif spoke. Part of what he said was,

while Ryan wouldn't have chosen to be blind, he bore his burden with unmatched dignity. With pristine honesty in his voice, he told me, I am glad that I was the one this happened to and not one of you guys. Yep. A testament to what,

Ryan was willing to sacrifice for his brothers in arms and a statement of his strength and will. Two of the things that drove him not only to survive but thrive in his new environment for the next three years. We thank God for these past three years that were given to him. In those three years, he accomplished more than most do in a lifetime. People would call Ryan a hero. He wasn't comfortable with that. I'm not a hero, Ryan would say. Just because I got shot doesn't make me a hero.

Ryan, it wasn't just getting shot that made you a hero. It was going out on operations day after day, night after night, which you could have been killed or gravely wounded at any moment that made you a hero. It was your courage and determination in the most intense combat situations that made you a hero. It was your will to overcome the loss of your sight. It was a tremendous inspiration to others through your indomitable spirit that made you a hero. who's being a friend, brother, son, husband, and now father with unending love in your heart that made you a hero.

Ryan, as humble as you are, I am here to tell you, you are a hero. Your spirit and sacrifice will never be forgotten. It will live on with us, and we are comforted to know that we will see you again. I wanted to add to that that he always kept his sense of humor. He did. He was in a store. I think it might have been a grocery store at the checkout line. And there was a, you know, he had a bad, real bad scar, you know, on his face.

And a mother and her young daughter were right behind him. And she says, look at that man. What happened to his face? Real loud. and didn't skip a beat, Ryan turned around and said, this should teach you never to run with scissors. I couldn't believe that he did. How did he come up with that that fast?

This will teach you never to run with scissors. You know, even that line that Laif quoted, you know, I'm not a hero, Ryan would say. And you could read it like this, just because I got shot doesn't make me a hero. That's not how he would say it. He'd say it like, hey, just because I got shot doesn't make me a hero. You know, he was, yeah, he was freaking hilarious.

And that's one of the many reasons why everybody loved it. Yeah. Because it's not, you know, it's not just a tough guy. It's not just a warrior. It's a guy that's always going to make people laugh. And that's what, that's what endeared him so much to everybody in the task unit was he's going to put a smile on his face. And he doesn't mind, he doesn't, he's going to, he's going to take it. He could dish it out, but he could take it.

It didn't matter. He's going to have a good time doing it. And it was just, he was just epic to be around. Yeah. He was a force of nature. That's for sure. How did you, what was it like now? And as far as when people are dealing with loss, what did you learn from losing right? For me, it's just how short life can be and it can be taken so quickly.

And I think we really need to appreciate each and every hour that we have and to try, to try to be a blessing to other people, whoever you contact with. That's one of the lessons that I learned. I try to do that, to try to be a blessing to other people that I come in contact with. And Ryan could have a pretty strong temper, you know, when he wanted to.

He and I shared that. He had a temper about injustice. you know, to other people. And he was, he and his brother both were taught, don't ever put up with a bully. Don't, don't ever do that. And that was probably one of the few things in our home that would lead to severe discipline is,

first of all, never be one. And secondly, don't ever tolerate it for other people. My younger son, I came home one afternoon, and there he is sitting on the couch from high school because he had taken up for someone that was weaker and apparently beat the tar out of him and they suspended him. So they sent him home and there he is with the way

until your dad gets home look on his face. So I walked in the door and Debbie, Debbie was there, tell your dad what you did. So he did. I said, terrific. You did just what I said. Let's go to the movies. So there was that.

But yeah, they wouldn't tolerate a bully. He said, you have to stand up for people that are weaker than you are. And do what's right, no matter what the cost is. And both of them, both of them did. So I'm grateful. I'm really grateful for that. And Ryan's daughter was born, Lee, Ryan Job. born on April Fool's Day

April 1st 2010 made me laugh because I'm sure he was laughing he plotted that one somehow carried on with your lives obviously what are you

what are you all up to now I know you move to the country first the book came out and that prompted some phone calls then the movie came out so this is now American sniper of the book and then American sniper the movie

So I went looking for another place for sanctuary And There was just so much going on On the one hand, we felt like we needed to go see the movie On the other hand, we didn't. I'm glad we did But that's one of the reasons that we ended up, you know, living in the country just for sanctuary.

I have a spot that I go to, you know, with some things to remember him by down there, a quiet stream out in the country. And it's my quiet place that I get to go to. So that's what I have. But I'm one of those rare fathers that gets to look up to his own son. That's an amazing thing. you know, when you think about it. So it's a very rare thing. Like I said, we were privileged to have him for as long as we did.

And to this day, I think he inspires people that still might look into the story about who he was and what he did. And he was a man's man in every respect, in every respect. and I like that. I like that a lot. It's your turn. Well, we're retired now. Move to the country. We're just farmers now.

Built a garden this year. Beautiful. We're glad to have indoor plumbing. Yeah, it's a whole new life up there. But I miss Erin and his family for sure. I'd like to try to see them more. But it's a quieter pace. That's what we needed.

I miss them every day. Every day. I think about it. I want to close by, I got another email from Ryan that he sent Laif and asked Laif to circulate it around the teams. And I know we're recording this podcast today on August 2nd, 2024, 18 years after. for the day that Ryan was wounded, then 18 years to the day after Mark Lee was killed in action.

And this email is an email that Ryan sent out on Sunday, August 3rd, 2008. From Ryan Jobb. Subject, I live. Let all who know me and call me my friend and call me, friend, hear my words. I am alive and well. The events of 0-2 August 2006

injured my warrior flesh, but I am still a warrior. My warrior spirit remains strong and intact. My head is bloodied, but unbowed. I am alive. Few men have the privilege of listing by name those whose actions provided me my life. I can.

Laif Babin. Mike H. Nick H. Tony Afradi. Jeremy Beale. Chris Kyle. Bob Holland. Jake K.

Ben T. Matt Hasby. Adam S. Kevin Lace. Jason Hogan. Johnny Kim, Nick Cush, and Mark Allen Lee. I owe my life to SEAL Team 3 Task Unit Bruiser Charlie Patoon. I am alive and well, and Mark Allen Lee is home and will never be forgotten.

In memory of Mark Allen Lee killed in action, 0-2 August 2006, Ramadi Iraq. to old Charlie Biggles. You raised an amazing kid, an amazing man, amazing frog man. And thank you so much for joining me here today and sharing your stories and sharing your experiences and most important. Thank you for the gift that you all gave us.

True warrior. A true inspiration. an example for all of us and we'll never forget him thank you for honoring Ryan in this way and with that Eric and Debbie Jobb have left the building thanks for listening and please please remember our fallen heroes and if you run into some challenges in your life try and try and think of Ryan Job Bigels and keep going forward maintain your progress bloodied but unbowed go out into the world this is Jocko